This application relates to cross-referenced application Ser. No. 08/562,178, filed Nov. 20, 1995, allowed as cross-referenced U.S. Pat. No. 6,216,139, and is amended to add and claim disclosure not presented in that prior application. Since the present application names the inventor named in the prior application, it may constitute a continuation-in-part of the prior application under the provisions of 35 U.S.C.120 and 37 CFR 1.78.
The invention in Claim 5 of cross-referenced application Ser. No. 08/562,178 is a dialog box for creating computer records of text data objects that are selectively displayed on data tables. The present invention adds two related functions to that dialog box. That dialog box is but one component of the several required for the mind-centric analytic methodology described in cross-referenced U.S. Pat. No. 6,134,564, all components of which are described herein as essential for a proper understanding of the present invention. That methodology, named contextual data modeling (CDM) by the present inventor, is a systemized form of computer-aided morphological analysis that deals with parametric objects in an orderly way in which no interrelations of their parameter values on a data table are ignored a priori as being unimportant. Said objects are any type of objects, events, or any other entities with unique identifying names or numbers, plus parameters such as weight, material, location, date, age, importance, etcetera. It will be apparent that such “evidence items” exist in many fields of investigation, analysis, and research and that many interrelations are possible. In CDM, the mind of the computer user, not the computer, discovers and analyzes all possible interrelations. Meaningful interrelations include groups, sequences, similarities, proximity, etcetera. Their merit is determined by the user in the context of that person's semantic, episodic, and procedural memory (knowledge, experience, and skills). The user's intuition, imagination, and reasoning then lead to iterative and rapid modeling/manipulating of the viewed data to synchronize it with the user's reasoning. The viewed data are displayed on the several computer-generated imaged CDM components, explained herein, that are, individually or severally, viewed by the user. Modeling continues until the user has identified and evaluated all possible meaningful groups, sequences, or other desired interrelations.